Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Digging Out From Under It All

Sometimes I feel as if I started blogging because of the long, dark winters and my need to communicate with the outside world on days where it was too cold to go outdoors. Just me and my babies in a house in the cold writing a little her and there, adding some comfort to going it alone with kids - and it feels so much like sending a message out in a bottle. For this reason I feel so comforted by this little blog on weeks like this, where the temperature doesn't rise above -20, the wind blows, the snow billows down. It feels comforting and nostalgic somehow to tippity-tap a little blog post because it's what I've been doing for almost four winters now. Time flies as they say, but here I am slightly altered in four years but still very much ensconced, and mashed into life with little kids.

I know looking back over last years blogging that I wrote a lot about difficult days. Thanks for sticking with me through what felt like monthly reports on how hard ordinary days can be. I just want to have things equally and honestly documented, so hopefully my good posts outweighed the whiney/bad because the good very much outweighs the bad, and even ekes out the difficult.

That all being said, my goodness, I want to write down how crazy my days are right now so I never, ever, ever forget and somehow become a delusional grandmother who only thinks toddlers paint rainbows and coo cuteness.

Yesterday I endured the same question about missing pants about 777 times before lunch. Then, soon after lunch was finished another child asked about the same pants. There are so many questions thrown my way, and being the only person around to answer and supply answers I am greatly in demand. Everything is an emergency!

I'm getting closer to having a child able to make some form of nutritional sustenance, but most likely decades away from getting through a meal without kids arguing with each other, having to tell people repeatedly to just eat, wrangling someone into a chair to eat, and enduring requests for more food/water when they have yet to finish the food/water in their mouths.

I'm still constantly breaking up fights and disagreements. I know it's normal child-like behaviour but it is exhausting. I try to provide different activities for everyone, but everyone needs to do the same thing all the time. The 3 year old must do what the 7 year old does exactly the same. And if you dare to defy this rationale it is a 45 minute battle/tantrum/timeout to come.

I know all my babies born so closely together is an embarrassment of riches and a near pregnancy record, but the sheer number of them clambering for things at a near constant rate is really unbelievable at times. I wish I could believe it's working some serious years off purgatory time for me, but the daily losings of it add up mighty fast.

But the days do pass quickly in a way, too fast to sit down, or type, or fit in this or that. The laundry piles up faster than man or machine can wash them, the meals don't plan or cook themselves, groceries don't appear by magic, there is always a baby to wash, a child to clothe, a book to be read. Oh, and because of the weather at least 15 minutes to appropriately attire everyone so they don't die of hypothermia by stepping outside!

But under the piles of work, and sheer multitude of toddler-ness, are five people who love me more than anything. That's what I can't miss. It's not the "magical moments", or the fleeting memories, or the need for their every waking moment to be bliss (or mine to be free of guilt), that I can't afford to miss: it's the love. The love freely and wholly given to me by five dear, perfect, souls who give it to me every day no matter what mistakes I make and how many times I make them. That's what's happening now and being given to me now. There's no guarantee that this love will always be there, it will change, and as they grow I won't be their "best one", but they will hopefully love me through my faults and failings. The love will be different. That's why I can't miss the love under it all.

14 comments:

I just didn't finish Hands Free Mama and this is what I think she was missing- every moment doesn't have to be magical and never forgotten. We need to love and appreciate their love and do the dang best we can with the rest. Here's to long naps!

I love this :) Especially the part where you don't want forget. I write down some of those things too...so I can remember when I'm a MIL. SO I don't tell my DIL that my toddlers NEVER made a mess or got annoying lol

Also, we're not quite as cold as up there. BUT it's still too cold to go outside. Dear winter...you're lame. the end.

Yes to this a thousand times. I only have two that are verbal and ambulatory, Christy, but I feel like you just described my life- everything happening at once, everything needing to be the same for each one, constant bickering...And yet I'm amazed at how quick they are to forgive, and at their love even with all my failings.

Oh Christy, I needed this so much today. Well, really the last couple of weeks. Sometimes I just drown. And, right now, I'm not the best at picking up the pieces and just beginning again. Thanks for sharing your heart!

Amen. It's amazing to me how crazy-in-love with these kids I am, and how crazy-forgiving they are when I lose it with them or spend the days lying on the couch nursing the baby barely interacting with them... They love SO much and I can't even imagine the day when I won't have this many kids fighting for cuddles all day long :)

"...I want to write down how crazy my days are right now so I never, ever, ever forget and somehow become a delusional grandmother who only thinks toddlers paint rainbows and coo cuteness." Perfect

I loved reading about the abundance of crazy and fullness of love that is our life with small children! It's one of the great mysteries of motherhood and family life that never fails to amaze me - that mind-warping insanity and cup-overflowing love can be so intertwined and inseparable :)